Friday, January 28

Today marked the beginning of our trip to Limon. It feels like it has been a marathon of a week, and I was so tired all day. The journey to Limon began this morning at 8 at LASP. We were lucky enough to get to hear a lecture by one of Costa Rica's leading politicians, Epsy Campbell. She ran for Vice President in the last election and spoke to us about Costa Rica's diversity and the province of Limon. It was good to hear her perspective, and she explained that Limon is one of Costa Rica's most diverse provinces, but that it is very isolated and has been victim to much discrimination.

After her lecture, we loaded onto two buses and started towards Limon. I sat in a jump seat which made me feel like I was going to fly through the windshield the whole time until I switched places with someone at one of our stops. During the ride I got to talk to Don Antonio about my thesis, which was really helpful.

We had four scheduled stops on the way, and our first was at a coffee plantation about one hour away from San Jose. There, Javier explained the history and coffee farming in Costa Rica. He talked about the harm of growing coffee unnaturally as a monoculture (alone in a field without any other plants to balance soil nutrients) and the impact exports in general have on Costa Rica. We took a while to look at the coffee fruit growing on the plants and take some pictures, and then we were off to our next stop.

A short ride later, we were at a pineapple plantation. Laura shared about pineapples (which actually grow in a spiky short plane on the ground...not on trees!) and we got to take some more pictures. Between that stop and the next one we really began to feel the climate changing to be much more tropical. We passed through a beautiful national part and saw some huge rivers. At one point we saw the place where two rivers converged, and we could see the impact that different types of pollution were having on the water very clearly. One of the rivers was a greenish color while the other was a murky brown. The rivers were given their color from runoff from the various fertilizers used at farms upstream.

For lunch we stopped at this cool buffet place where Haleigh and I ate with Don Mike. It was fun talking to them about what we have to look forward to for the rest of the semester. Talking about our trip to Nicaragua was also a little concerning because there are so many stories about people getting really sick during their stays there. Apparently we won't be going to the areas where the worst illnesses have been experienced, but I'm still a little nervous about that part...I guess we'll just wait and see. God will carry me through whatever happens.

Stop #4 was a banana plantation where we got to observe bananas being processed from bunches on the stalks (or herbs...also not trees!) to produce crates to be shipped internationally. The people at the plantation apparently weren't expecting us, so we didn't do a full tour or anything, and it was kind of awkward to be talking about and taking pictures of the people who were there working, but they normally give tours, so it probably wasn't as weird as I thought.

Don Antonio explained how things at the plantation worked and the history or fruit plantations in Central America (starting with the United Fruit Company, a key figure in my GUA/USA paper). He explained that the original business owners who planned to grow fruit in Central America and export it bought huge plots of land in Central America for very small prices. They signed contracts with the dictators of several countries in the late 1800s that gave them ownership of massive quantities of unused land as well as special tax exemptions and the right to refuse wage increases for up to 100 years. These contracts have led to many problems and allowed for much exploitation, creating hindrances in the development of Central America and contributing to the region's difficulties even today. Don Antonio also talked about the high standards of international fruit markets. He said that every country has its own standards for banana quality and that the workers at banana plantations have to work very hard to know and meet those standards every day.

When we finally arrived in Limon, we split up into groups of two for room assignments and were given money for dinner and breakfast. Then we had free time for the rest of the night. Haleigh and I went out with Rene and Megan to finish our interview assignments. We felt a little awkward walking about looking for people to interview, but everyone we ran into was really friendly. It is amazing how different Limon and San Jose are, and we all felt especially like fish out of water in our newest environment. After a few successful interviews with some helpful people, we stopped fro dinner at a little restaurant. The heat and humidity were unbelievable, but dinner was good and afterward we got ice cream to cool off. We also stopped at a supermarket to buy breakfast foods for the weekend, and we had fun observing the differences between supermarkets here and in the States.

I pretty much crashed as soon as we got back to the hotel. The little bit of sun I got today is already manifesting itself in a slight sunburn, so will have to be extra careful to put on lots of sunscreen tomorrow. A little something that brightened my life was reading Psalm 139 before bed. Check it out :)